what kind of advantage do I have here

Playing BJ with lucky ladies side bet. Dealer is allowing players to stack lucky ladies wins on bet like house money. Should I play this every bet?

I don't know the math. But I'd think absolutely!

Deleted

Quote: GWAE

Playing BJ with lucky ladies side bet. Dealer is allowing players to stack lucky ladies wins on bet like house money. Should I play this every bet?

I don't get it. *sigh*

I guess I can really be dumb.

Quote: odiousgambit

I don't get it. *sigh*

I guess I can really be dumb.

There's a correlation between winning the lucky ladies side bet and winning the main had. You have a 20 if you win the side bet, so increasing you main bet when it wins, with the winnings is a positive EV move on the main hand.

If you could bet 5 if you have 21, 19 or lower and 20-50 when you have a 20 up, you'd be in a very sweet spot.

Interesting, nice find. GET GREEDY NEXT TIME AND CALL A FRIEND.

Quote: thecesspit

There's a correlation between winning the lucky ladies side bet and winning the main had. You have a 20 if you win the side bet, so increasing you main bet when it wins, with the winnings is a positive EV move on the main hand.

If you could bet 5 if you have 21, 19 or lower and 20-50 when you have a 20 up, you'd be in a very sweet spot.

OK, I get it now, not past-posting but increasing a bet with knowledge you are not supposed to have ...

Quote: odiousgambit

OK, I get it now, not past-posting but increasing a bet with knowledge you are not supposed to have ...

In the side bet house money, if you win the side bet you get the option of keeping the win or putting it on top of your regular BJ bet. In lucky ladies you only win the side bet if you have a total of 20. The bet is supposed to be resolved right away, so if you get dealt JJ suited it pays 25 to 1 and you keep the money. In this case the dealer was asking if you want to stack it, like in house money. So when I got dealt JQ suited, I had 10 on BJ hand and 10 on side bet. My 10 side bet got paid 10 to 1 and 110 should have been pushed back to me, but instead the dealer asked if I wanted it stacked. I stacked it so now my BJ bet was $120 which won, so I got to pull back $240. So instead of me winning $130 on the hand I won $240.

The good thing with this side bet is you only win with a 20, so basically if you win that hand you are probably going to win the main bet. If this were in between it would be different because you are usually dealt a crappy hand to win the side bet and probably wouldn't want to stack it.

thanks

20 must win for player in BJ not 52, 53%, which would be sweet, but something enormous like 90%! [or no?]

I know someone who did just what you did and the state police broke their door down the next day during half time.

Quote: odiousgambit

thanks

20 must win for player in BJ not 52, 53%, which would be sweet, but something enormous like 90%! [or no?]

https://wizardofodds.com/games/blackjack/appendix/2a/

6 Decks- Dealer Hits on Soft 17
DEALER'S DEALER'S FINAL TOTAL
UP CARD 17 18 19 20 21 BUST
Ace 0.082842 0.206593 0.206757 0.207262 0.095264 0.201281
2 0.130071 0.135978 0.131607 0.125662 0.120022 0.356661
3 0.1259 0.13193 0.126656 0.122185 0.116371 0.376958
4 0.122458 0.125405 0.12262 0.11783 0.113217 0.39847
5 0.118089 0.123042 0.118216 0.112435 0.108586 0.419632
6 0.115064 0.114574 0.115043 0.110177 0.105882 0.439259
7 0.369208 0.137931 0.078428 0.078682 0.073816 0.261936
8 0.12894 0.359955 0.128723 0.069219 0.06947 0.243693
9 0.12031 0.117348 0.351854 0.120368 0.060877 0.229242
10 0.121273 0.121007 0.121306 0.368447 0.037729 0.230239
All 0.140113 0.148245 0.142446 0.190581 0.078607 0.300007



I'm assuming it was a H17 6-deck game...not that it matters a whole lot.

73% chance of a win (doubling your lucky ladies win, and the initial wager)
19% chance of a push (same as just pocketing the LL win & wager)
8% chance of a loss (lose LL winnings and side bet)


So yeah, this is a VERY strong game.


I'm sure you've wondered: What do you do if you catch a 20 vs A? Do you pocket the win & wager or do you stack it up? The amount you win doesn't matter (if we're strictly talking about if it's +EV or -EV to stack....although the amount of win will/might depend on how risk averse you are. I don't really care about the risk aversion, at least not for this).

With an Ace up:

Let's just say a 33% chance dealer has a BJ (it's really less, but, for simplicity, let's just use this metric).

A dealer's 17-19 is a win, and so is a bust, so you have a ~70% of a win (dealer 17, 18, 19, bust). A 21% chance the dealer gets a 20 (push), and a 9% chance the dealer catches a 21. Also factor in another 33% on top of that 9% (33% BJ, 9% non-natural 21) gives a 42% chance of a loss.

But now, factor in the chance of the hole card not being a ten (so multiply the pervious figure by 0.66, including the 9% dealer non-natural 21, but NOT the natural 21) and you get:

Win = 0.7 * 0.66
Push: 0.21 * 0.66
Natural 21: 0.33 [don't multiply by 0.66]
Multi-card 21: 0.09 * 0.66

=

win: 46%
push: 14%
natural 21: 33%
non-natural 21: 6%

Sum is 99, so I'm close enough.


Ultimately with an Ace up:

Win: 46%
Push: 14%
Loss: 39%


These are rounded figures (should be very close, though).

If my math is correct, you WOULD stack a LL win against an Ace up.



However, I *believe* the proper procedure for dealing with an Ace up is:

Offer insurance
check for BJ
- if dealer has BJ, take losing wagers
- - Pay out LL side bets
- if dealer does not have BJ, pay side bets
- - [incorrectly stack the win onto main bet)
proceed as usual


If the dealer checks for BJ *after* paying out LL side bets, I would still stack up my winnings. The only time I wouldn't is if I were dealt QhQh, because if the dealer has a T in the hole, it would pay off much more (1000:1 instead of 200:1, i believe). But if you did get a QhQh, I think the dealer would check for a BJ before making any payments on the side bet. I don't think I'd stack my QhQh win up against a T up, either, just in case there's an A in the hole [which would be -EV, btw].




EDIT:
Figuring out the actual advantage you had is a little bit more tricky, because you have to figure out the rate of occurrence of each LL win, take into account what happens when you lose the LL side bet (which happens most hands) as well as the size of your original main bet. Betting $5 on main bet and $25 on the LL would be very high EV. But betting $1,000 on the main bet and $25 on LL would be much less EV, because you're still giving up a 0.5% on your main bet (or whatever the HE is on main bet).

I'm amazed this went on as long as it did without surveillance of a floor noticing. You said the only reason it stopped was because that dealer's shift was over? I'd be interested to know if that dealer continues to do it next time.

Quote: GWAE

Playing BJ with lucky ladies side bet. Dealer is allowing players to stack lucky ladies wins on bet like house money. Should I play this every bet?

How many other players were at the table? Although the dealer was inexperienced, did thoughts of collusion cross your mind?

Quote: GWAE

Playing BJ with lucky ladies side bet. Dealer is allowing players to stack lucky ladies wins on bet like house money. Should I play this every bet?

Let me get this straight... the dealer was asking players if they'd like to increase their bets when they have 20? And you have to ask if you should play this every hand?

Quote: sodawater

Let me get this straight... the dealer was asking players if they'd like to increase their bets when they have 20? And you have to ask if you should play this every hand?

J. is on top of these things, I'll vouch for him. I'd have to guess his concern is killing the golden goose.

Quote: GWAE

Playing BJ with lucky ladies side bet. Dealer is allowing players to stack lucky ladies wins on bet like house money. Should I play this every bet?

I took my paragraph here about how I'd more precisely attack this game out because I honestly believe this is very profitable. PM me if you want more details on how better to attack this game past regular counting, etc.

I mean, say you have a $40 main bet, and a $20 ladies bet... You hit a suited 20 (10-1)... Your blackjack $40 hand now becomes a $160 hand and you have a 20. This of what this does to your "spread" and your "ev" of the blackjack... This is very profitable, to say the least.

somehow I missed the replies on this thread.

Quote: Deucekies

I'm amazed this went on as long as it did without surveillance of a floor noticing. You said the only reason it stopped was because that dealer's shift was over? I'd be interested to know if that dealer continues to do it next time.

I was as well. I have never seen the dealer before but I have not been playing very much lately. The one lady at the table said the previous relief dealer was doing it as well. I am not sure that I believe her.

Quote: 1BB

How many other players were at the table? Although the dealer was inexperienced, did thoughts of collusion cross your mind?

There were between 4 other players but 1 was playing 2 spots. Collusion did not occur at all because the other 4 were complete idiots. The type of people who don't want to take the bust card, won't hit a 16 because there are to many bust cards, and surrender on 13 vs 10. When the dealers changed and the new dealer didn't stack the bet 2 people questioned if he knew what he was talking about. The one lady almost called the floor over. I was about to run for the hills.

wait: you mean collusion with dealer and players. No that was not happening at all. If it were then they were idiots about doing it. There were only 2 other people playing it and they were both betting $1 on LL.

Quote: sodawater

Let me get this straight... the dealer was asking players if they'd like to increase their bets when they have 20? And you have to ask if you should play this every hand?

but you have to still get the 20. I know the winning of the side bet was huge but I didn't know if that was enough to offset the HE on a side bet. LL has a 24% HE so I wasn't sure if there was enough EV added back in with this change.

Quote: odiousgambit

J. is on top of these things, I'll vouch for him. I'd have to guess his concern is killing the golden goose.

thank you for the kind words. I wasn't necessarily worried about killing the goose. I was worried about security tapping me on the shoulder 2 hours later asking for money back.

Quote: Romes

I took my paragraph here about how I'd more precisely attack this game out because I honestly believe this is very profitable. PM me if you want more details on how better to attack this game past regular counting, etc.
I mean, say you have a $40 main bet, and a $20 ladies bet... You hit a suited 20 (10-1)... Your blackjack $40 hand now becomes a $160 hand and you have a 20. This of what this does to your "spread" and your "ev" of the blackjack... This is very profitable, to say the least.

Thank you for the offer but I think this was a 1 time occurrence so I don't want to clutter my already maxed out brain with this info.


I forgot to add. This dealer was soooo bad that on one hand I had bet $20 with a $10 LL bet. I won with a suited 20. It paid 10 to 1 and of course I stacked it. I now had $130 on my bet. The dealer then started breaking it down and then grabbed his chips to pay me again. I said, wait I don't have BJ. He laughed and said something like oh yeah, I don't know what I was thinking. Doing something like that would get me fired. I almost exploded holding in my laughter.

Odds of finding this again are slim, but assuming someone did, would you act like a ploppy and bet LL side bet on every hand instead of only when the LL count made sense to not draw attention? Would the edge be enough to cover the HA on LL?

The best course of action isn't to bet it every time, in my opinion. I haven't ran the full numbers to see what the 'advantage' of stacking would do, but I feel fairly confident the LL side bet should be separately attacked, to say the least... At that point the BJ hand plays itself.